Harry Potter and the Unexpected Plot Twist
by Andrew Aelfwine
Summary: Diagon Alley. Fudge goes over to the Dark Side. Unforgiveable Curses. Single malt Scotch. Family secrets revealed. Nothing will ever be quite the same for Harry and company.


Harry Potter and the Unexpected Plot Twist

An Harry Potter fanfiction by Andrew Aelfwine

Harry Potter and friends are property of J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic, Warner Brothers, et cetera. 

Stephen Dedalus is property of James Joyce (see _Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_ for details), and he's welcome to keep the pretentious little bastard. Who presumably changed the spelling of his name when he went to live as an artist amongst the Muggles :-)

_The Playboy of the Western World _is written by John Milton Synge.

Barney the rotten stinking evil purple dinosaur and his bloody song are property of Lyons Group.

_Alice's Restaurant_ (in four-part harmony) is property of Arlo Guthrie.

The drinking song is modified from one found in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels.

Ron nicks a line from Robert Rankin's _Raiders of the Lost Car Park._ If you like any combination of: Harry Potter, conspiracy theories, and/or the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you should read this and all Rankin's other books besides.

The Ingolfssons and the Domination of the Draka belong to S.M. Stirling. Canonically, there aren't any Draka wizards. Perhaps they all emigrated to other worlds?

No infringement of nor challenge to copyright is intended by this not-for-profit fanfiction.

Thanks to Suika Roberts for catching some of the bits I missed in editing this.

"Run away! Run away!" The screaming wizard ran past Harry and the Weasleys and further down Diagon Alley, towards Knockturn.

"Was that Daedalus Diggle?" Ron said.

"I think it was his cousin, Stephen Daedalus. The writer chappie," Bill said. 

"Oh. Wonder what's got into him?"

Bill shrugged. "Probably realised he'll never forge the unformed conscience of his race in the smithy of his soul. That's what he was always rattling on about when he was teaching lit at Hogwarts."

"I thought we didn't have lit," Harry said.

"That's because of Professor Daedalus."

"Don't tell 'Mione," Ron said, "she'll hunt him down and gut him with a spoon."

Bill drew his wand. "Listen, you fools, there's more screaming up ahead."

"Merlin's bleeding ulcers," Harry said. "I'm very fed up with this Voldemort business. Perhaps I'll just go ahead and kill him this year."

"You can't. J.K. Rowling wants another book out of us," Ron said.

"And what's wrong with _Harry Potter, the Playboy of the Wizarding World_?"

"What's wrong with _Ronald Weasley, Deflowerer of Virgins, Monster of Rock, Lead Singer of Gandhi's Hairdryer_?"

"The fact that you stole all that from Robert Rankin?"

"You stole yours from J.M. Synge."

"That's _hommage_, not stealing."

"Harry!" Bushy brown hair flying, robes askew, a familiar figure pelted into view.

"Hermione?" She ran straight into his arms and clung to him, burying her face in his robe.

"Harry... it's so horrible."

"Isn't it?" Ron muttered.

"What is it, Hermione? Death Eaters?"

"Oh, Harry, it's Minister Fudge. He's wearing an orange polka-dotted waistcoat with a lime green ascot and a purple boater! And he's singing that horrible Barney song."

"Who's Barney?" Ron said.

"Worse than the Dark Lord," Bill said. "If only Dumbledore were here."

"Harry?" Ron said, "why're you glowing?"

"Because Fudge has gone too far!" The sound of screams and the trampling of thousands of feet came nearer ahead.

"No one, and I mean no one, sings the Barney song at Hermione!"

She looked up at him, eyes streaming. "Do as thou must, mine Harry." She took her handkerchief from her pocket. "Wilt thou carry my favour?"

"With pleasure."

She tied it round his arm, kissed him, and stepped back. "Go forth, my knight."

"How romantic."

"Oh, Ron," Hermione said, "don't be a prat."

"Quite right." Ron threw his arms round Harry and kissed him hard on the lips. "Come back, you brilliant madman. We're counting on you." He tied his handkerchief next to Hermione's. "Don't think I've wiped my nose on this yet." Harry drew his wand and marched round the bend of the street.

"Sweet Christ," Neville said. "They really are a threesome, aren't they?"

"When did you show?" Bill said.

"A few minutes ago. I'm supposed to have coffee with Malfoy and set up his defect... oops."

"It's all right, lad," Bill said, patting Neville on the shoulder, "no one's got perfect tradecraft straightaway."

"Shut up and watch," Hermione said, "or you'll miss the big final confrontation scene." Ahead, a dreadful hint of piping melody became audible over the sound of screams. 

"Cover your ears," Bill shouted. "Cover your ears, or you'll regret it."

Harry backed into view, Fudge following him. The very fabric of the universe eddied and swirled round the figure of the Minister for Magic, warped by the severely unmatching colours of his clothing.

"This ends now, Fudge!"

"I love you, Harry! And I know you love me, too!"

"You're mad, Fudge. Stone bonkers."

"Sing with me, Harry!"

"I won't!"

Another figure came into view, her purple and lime heels clacking on the cobblestones. "Sing with us, Harry. Hem hem." 

"Merlin," Ron muttered, "it's Umbridge." Hermione huddled closer to him.

"Sing with us, Harry. And we'll be a happy family!" Fudge said.

"And then You Know Who will sing with us, and so will the Muggles, and we'll all be a happy family! Hem hem."

"I love you," Fudge and Umbridge sang, "you love me-- "

"Let's take back the Ministry! Avada-- "

"Harry!" Hermione and Ron cried. "No!"

"Kevadra!" Flashing green lit up the cloudy sky.

Fudge and Umbridge toppled to the ground. Almost instantly, a dozen Aurors apparated onto the scene.

"Well, that's torn it," Neville said. "Glad I brought backup."

Ron, Hermione, and Neville gathered into a triangle round Harry, wands drawn. "You'll not take our Harry to Azkaban," Hermione declared.

"Lay a hand on him," Bill said, "and your credit rating's down the toilets. You'll never run a tab at your local again, much less take out a loan for that holiday cottage in Transylvania."

"My invisible friends and I have you surrounded!" Luna Lovegood's voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once.

"Take him to Azkaban?" said an Auror, her voice echoing with magical amplification. "Take him to Azkaban?" She threw back the armoured hood of her robe, revealing a chiseled eagle face topped with red hair. "We're here to thank him!"

"Is that one of our cousins?" Ron whispered.

"She's got the Ingolfsson look to her," Bill said. "A Weasley married one of them two hundred years ago in an alternate South Africa, and there's a branch that immigrated to our history a couple decades back. As a matter of fact, I..."

"Bill Weasley!" the red haired Auror called, "it's Alexandra Ingolfsson. We met at the reunion, when we were kids. Remember?"

"How could I forget?" 

"It's a trick," Hermione said. "Don't relax."

There was another pop, and Albus Dumbledore appeared between the two groups. "No, it isn't. Sometimes the Unforgiveables are perfectly Forgiveable."

"Especially when the target is singing that abominable song," Kingsley Shacklebolt said, stepping out of the Leaky Cauldron. "Allow me to stand you a drink, Harry."

"Aren't I underage?"

"Not today," Dumbledore said, "none of you are. Laphroaig on me, all around! And that's including Miss Lovegood's invisible friends." Cheers rang out from a dozen metaphysical throats, and Luna was suddenly there beside them in the street, dressed like Emma Peel, if Emma Peel had a taste for plaid and carried a winged hamster on her shoulder.

"Thanks, Luna," Harry said. "And thanks to your invisible friends as well."

"It was nothing," Luna said. "You were very brave today, Harry." Her voice went low, "My invisible girlfriends certainly thought so."

"He's taken," Ron said, putting his arm about Harry. Hermione latched onto Harry's other side.

"Only slagging," Luna said. "I'd never betray my Neville." She took his hand.

"What about me?" Ginny Weasley said, manifesting from somewhere in the direction of Knockturn Alley. She wore Wizarding Branch SAS urban camouflage fatigues in the standard pattern of lots of little buildings, and carried a crossbow slung over her shoulder.

"Not you neither, sweet," Luna said. "Even for the prettiest invisible girl on the planet."

"Well," Neville said, "so much for my contact. He'll not come out in all this hullabaloo."

Ingolfsson threw her arms round Bill, picked him up, and put him down again, red-faced and gasping for breath. "So, how is my kissing cousin?" she said. "I heard you were seeing that pretty Veela girl, the one who was in the Triwizard? Are you still?"

"Yes," he said. "We're to meet at the Cauldron for lunch."

"May I join you? I'm sure we'll all be the _best_ of friends."

A few streets away, Draco Malfoy sat before the fire in a nondescript Victorian flat. "Father," he said to the flames, "there's been an unexpected development."

"Fudge is singing that bloody song, is he?"

"He was. Potter killed him. Is this part of Our Lord's secret plan?"

"Not quite," Lucius said. "_He_'s singing it as well. And half the Colloquy with Him. Your mother and I have our earplugs, but--" He broke off.

"Father?"

"There's no time to explain. I'll Floo in half an hour if we're successful. If we fail, take your broomstick and make for Calais. Tante Laëticia will take you in. _Je t'aime, mon fils. Au 'voir._"

"Father!"

Dumbledore and Shacklebolt were arm-in-arm with Nymphadora Tonks and some Durmstrang professor whose name Harry had already forgotten, singing a German drinking song and swaying back and forth. Surely his translation spell was acting up; the lyrics couldn't _really_ be:

"We have to tell them again and again  
"Ride off on the _horses_ and kill the _men_  
I think sometimes they'll never learn  
_First_ we plunder and _then_ we burn."

The foursome sat down amidst a burst of applause, the loudest from Alexandra Ingolfsson, who lay sprawled in Bill and Fleur's laps, rather like a tall, black-clad humanoid housecat.

Ron was tugging at his sleeve. "Up with you, Harry, and you, 'Mione, let's give them a song. Up the Cannons!"

"Oh, Ron--" Hermione fell silent, along with the rest of the room. Harry looked away from her, towards the front of the Leaky Cauldron. Lucius Lord Malfoy stood in the doorway, his serpent- headed cane in his right hand and a leather satchel in his left. 

"Well, well," he said, "if it isn't Albus Dumbledore and his merry band, celebrating the demise of Minister Fudge." Harry slipped his wand into his hand, felt Ron and Hermione do the same. 

"As it happens," Malfoy said, "I've a death to celebrate, myself. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the late unlamented Lord Voldemort." He dumped out his satchel on the floor. Along with several copies of _Playwizard_ and a set of pornographic Tarot cards, the head of Voldemort, reptilian eyes staring sightlessly into space, fell out on the boards. 

"Err... no one saw those, did they?" Malfoy said, gathering up the first mentioned items. 

"Of course not, Mr. Malfoy," Harry, Ron, and Hermione chorused. "We didn't see your smut at all."

"Children," Dumbledore said, "be kind to our friend Lucius, please." 

Ron rolled his eyes. "He's not _my_ friend. Even if he did stab the Wizard Formerly Known As He Who Must Not Be Named in the back."

Malfoy laid a hand on Ron's shoulder. "Now, Ronnie, is that any way to talk about your uncle?" Draco, stepping into the pub, froze just inside the threshold. 

"Uncle?" Ron went even paler than usual. "Surely not. It can't be." Draco walked straight to the bar and ordered a double whisky.

There was a sudden popping noise, and a house elf appeared on their table. "But it is, Weasley, Ronald it is!" The elf wore thick wire rimmed spectacles, and a sort of patchwork toga made of catalogue cards held together with acid-free tape and library paste. 

Hermione waved. "Hullo, Bloomsie!"

"Bloomsie says hullo, Granger, Hermione! Here is Weasley, Ronald's mother's class picture." The elf held an eight by ten coloured glossy photograph beneath Ron's nose. "Malfoy, Molly, Hufflepuff! Her brother, Malfoy, Lucius, Slytherin! And her fiancé, Weasley, Arthur, Gryffindor!" Circles appeared round each little figure, and arrows pointing to them. "And there is a paragraph on the back explaining! Would Weasley, Ronald like to read it?"

"No!" Ron fainted, and Harry reached out to catch his head before he struck it on the table. The elf vanished, just in time to avoid being squashed by falling Ron.

"What was that?" Harry said.

"A library elf. If you spent more time in the stacks, you'd've met one before." Hermione drew her wand. "_Ennervate!_"

Ron sat up. "I just dreamt Lucius Malfoy said he was my uncle. That would mean _Draco_ Malfoy was my cousin. What a silly sort of dream, eh?"

"How do you think _I_ feel about it, Cousin Weasel?" Draco said.

"If you're completely disgusted, Cousin Ferret, that's the only other thing we've got in common."

Two American wizards in business robes, wearing tooled leather boots with high heels and pointed toes and string ties with turquoise clasps, sat down at the bar. "Lissen to that, Vince," one said to the other in a nasal twanging accent, "ain't them fellas some kinda happy family?"

"Cousin Weasel," Draco said, "if you'd care to join me?"

"With pleasure, Cousin Ferret." 

They aimed their wands. "_Crucio!_"

For the record, I don't really think Molly Weasley was born a Malfoy. But wouldn't it tick off Ron and Draco to no end if she were?

Oh, and I should note, in case you're an English major and missed it on the disclaimer, I do know that Joyce spelled it Dedalus. I changed to make the joke work. 


End file.
